October 2nd, 2020 | Should You Write Your Own Blog?

A Blog Doesn’t Let Your Creative Thoughts Die.

Sometimes, creative thoughts suddenly come to you and then vanish in the air as quickly as they appeared—unless you quickly jump to your computer and write them down. I treat the blog as a self-development tool and a platform where I can develop and document the seeds of creative ideas. Most of them are too small to convert into a book or a full-fledged article. Yet, they are ideas worth one evening of my time. Within this time, I can place them online and open them for discussion. 

And who knows, sometimes a topic becomes trendy years and years after it was first mentioned. So, this content is never lost, and even if it gets overlooked door. Over time, it doesn’t mean that it won’t lead to some projects in the future.

Playground For a Home-Grown Author.

To write books, you need to have a craft in your hand—it’s not a skill that you can develop by taking a 20-hour course. Lack of writing skills is also not a problem that might be solved by hiring someone to put your thoughts on paper. You need years and years of learning by trial and error. 

In times when I was starting to blog as an undergrad in Warsaw, I offended quite a few people by making my posts too edgy, and by using a too dry sense of humour. I had to tune myself down and find a balance so that I can talk about my point of view without censoring myself too much, but at the same time, without making foes. It took me ages to learn!

But the effort paid off. When it comes to writing books right now, I don’t have any problem with putting together my thoughts in a structured and engaging way. Furthermore, some of my blog posts became the building blocks for my first book. 

Some other blog posts—either those which I already wrote or those which I’m still planning to write later—are going to be the seeds for concepts I’m about to place in my future books. 

As a matter of fact, to write a good book, you need some substrates: creative insights or ideas that cannot be found elsewhere—rather than just making a summary of knowledge that you gained from reading 50 other books and articles on the same subject. Blogging is a good stimulus to think independently and create new content.

It is also a good way to learn about writing in general. Some of the best book authors are those who made the transition from blogging to authoring books. They gained a natural way to engage the reader and earn their attention over and over throughout the text. No wonder many best-selling authors have or had a blog. Learning by doing, that’s it.

Documentation of How You Reason, and What Interests You.

This blog helped me to make some strategic decisions in my life, especially after my PhD contract expired. At first, I felt completely lost, therefore I took a gap year (as reported in the posts The Gap Year, and The Gap Year — vol. 2) to better focus on myself. I didn’t have a plan of what to do with myself, and I was mind wandering a lot. 

Yet, the other day, I sat down and looked back at all the posts that I had produced in recent years, and I was shocked. Although I was working 60-70 hours a week as a neuroscientist, pretty much nothing I have ever written, was about the human brain! I was interested in sociology, self-development, the job market, tech, and many other topics, but the human brain wasn’t even in the top ten. Sometimes it’s good to look at yourself from the distance. 

According to the popular proverb, “What you are procrastinating on, is probably what you should be doing for a living.” So, based on my blog, I concluded that eventually, neuroscience is not “it” for me.

You Own Plot in the Meadows of Internet.

I’m quite territorial, and I have a sense of ownership, Intellectual Property, and equity. Therefore, I notice the difference between writing a blog on your website. Your blog is a piece of soil that belongs to you—as opposed to writing posts on external websites such as, for example, on LinkedIn or Medium. 

In the latter case, you are only yet another blogger in the crowd of other bloggers. And you help the platform more (as your work holds the attention of the audience for a while) than the platform helps you. The platform monetizes on the work of all this sea of bloggers after all. 

So, I would rather have my small, modest plot that I can take care of (and then I know that everyone who comes there, comes there for me) in the corner of the meadow rather than a huge plot in the middle of the meadow (where all types people walk through in every direction without a plan and without even noticing me).

Interesting People Come to Your Life.

As mentioned above, blogging is a niche domain and it probably won’t make you rich and famous. But is always numbers the thing you need? I noticed some time ago that it’s much better to work with and befriend the right people rather than stand on stage and get a sea of random likes. Even if this is not the most popular blog out there, do I need to care about this when entrepreneurs and researchers whom I know and respect, contact me and ask me about possible collaborations because of my content?

Business is full of random people—plankton of these “serial entrepreneurs” who don’t have any hard skills in their hands or any real vision, and who would do absolutely anything in business as long as it makes money. Thus, you must have a good way of filtering people. Those who read my blog regularly are those who think alike. And that’s the first good sign before I decide to work with someone.

Gut Feeling About the Desired Competencies in the Job Market of the Future.

I track what’s happening to people in times on social media. I use to read a blog by Paul Graham, PhD (the co-Founder of Y Combinator) and other authors who don’t place any form of audiovisual information on their side. For me, this has a therapeutic value. I can focus on the actual text without any fancy visuals, pop-up ad banners in the corner, links to other stuff, or calls to action. 

And, I feel that this is going to be the trend—people slowly realizing that the fast food information online affects their mental health, and restricting the time for weekly social media activity on behalf of consuming well-structured information.

So, my gut feeling is telling me that in a few years, there will be a big comeback of the traditional ways of distributing information. There will be some internet-free meetups where you cannot exchange contact information using anything else than a traditional business card. 

Reading and writing books and blogs will be seen as prestigious—a domain of well-educated people and highly-qualified professionals—as opposed to those who are grown up on fast-food social media. So, even if this blog has a little impact now, it’s not necessarily going to be the case five or ten years from now.

Summary: So, Should You Write Your Blog?

So, to sum up, the points raised above, in which situations would I recommend writing your blog?

You Enjoy Writing and You Don’t Care.

As mentioned before, some people just enjoy writing, and it brings them energy rather than making them tired. I sometimes get some idea for a blog post when I jump on the train to visit friends in Amsterdam, and when I take off 80 minutes later, the draft of the post is already there. If you have the same affinity for writing, and you don’t have any expectations to ever become popular or wealthy because of your blog, it might be worth considering starting a blog.

You Aim to Build a Personal Brand As a Professional.

If there is a particular topic you are knowledgeable about and you would like to write about to demonstrate your knowledge, a blog might be the way to build your professional portfolio. However, mind that it’s a long-term game, ad within the first year, your blog likely won’t contain enough content to be a good representation of your expertise.

You Have a Little Business and You Want to Build Some Following for Your Company.

Small companies are still fighting for attention from potential clients and put a lot of attention into blogging for at least two reasons. Firstly, it was proven that a blog increases company sales by 60% on average as it allows to engage an external audience and build the name. 

Secondly, job seekers often make decisions upon applying for jobs based on the content of the company website. Therefore, it is essential to have good content that represents the vision and mission of the company in there.

However, writing takes a ton of time, and there is a great difference between “writing” and “good writing.” So, if you don’t have a decent writer on the team, I would advise writing short-form articles such as LinkedIn posts on the company page instead.